No surprise that Votto is the best. I was a little surprised to see that Hart had more home runs in fewer plate appearances. For some reason I have never gotten used to Allen Craig being a good player, but he is a very good hitter. Rizzo's numbers are brought down by a very poor year in San Diego, but at the same time Craig and Jones each had poor 2010 seasons.

1st basemen generally aren't good baserunners and that's true of this group. Rizzo's sample is smaller than the others, but it's possible he's the worst baserunner in the group. He has been the worst to this point taking playing time into consideration, but he's also had the best fielding (Votto overall, but when you factor in playing time it's Rizzo). Small sample alert definitely applies to the fielding in Rizzo's case.

Over the last 3 years there's Votto and then a big drop until you get to Craig and Hart with Jones and Rizzo well behind.

The 2013 CAIRO projections are below.

Name

PA

HR

BB

SO

avg

obp

slg

wOBA

oWAR

oWAR/550

Joey Votto

600

24

94

112

.307

.420

.532

.413

4.0

3.6

Craig Allen

432

16

33

79

.286

.343

.476

.353

2.0

2.6

Corey Hart

484

22

39

109

.270

.336

.494

.356

1.9

2.2

Garrett Jones

560

21

45

112

.257

.316

.449

.329

1.9

1.9

Anthony Rizzo

576

24

51

128

.261

.334

.469

.348

1.7

1.6

Jones was projected as a RF so if he's the 1st baseman then you can take about a win off his projected total. That's good news for Rizzo and Cubs fans. What's not so good is that Rizzo is well behind the other 3 1st basemen in the division.

If we add in fielding, Jones would improve to about 1.4 WAR (already factoring in his move to 1st), Votto 4.3 WAR, Craig 1.9 WAR, Hart 1.6 WAR and 1.8 WAR for Rizzo.

If we add in fielding we get the following:

Votto: 4.3 WAR
Craig: 1.9 WAR
Rizzo: 1.8 WAR
Hart: 1.6 WAR
Jones: 1.4 WAR

This isn't very encouraging considering Rizzo might be the best offensive player on the team.